The Maine Wire
  • News
  • Commentary
  • Maine Wire TV
  • About
  • Contact
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Trending News
  • Maine State Police Blindsided as Speaker Talbot Ross Claims They Support “Racial Profiling” Bill Written by ACLU
  • No Discipline for Social Worker Who Gave 13yo Girl Breast Binder Without Telling Mother, Says Maine State Board
  • State House Kills “Right to Work” Legislation Prohibiting Employment Conditional on Payment of Union Dues
  • Trump Indicted on Federal Charges in Classified Documents Probe as Biden Faces Bribery Allegations
  • Gov’s Late-Term Abortion Bill Heads to House Amid Acrimony [Podcast]
  • Maine Wire Podcast: Carroll Conley on Abortion, LGBT, and Religious Liberty in Maine
  • Dems Block Debate on Gov’s Late-Term Abortion Bill, Refuse GOP Questioning of Medical Experts
  • Partisan Vote Ends Brakey’s Bid for Welfare Work Requirements
Facebook Twitter Instagram
The Maine Wire
Login
Saturday, June 10
  • News
  • Commentary
  • Maine Wire TV
  • About
  • Contact
The Maine Wire
Home » News » Education in Maine is worse than you think
Education

Education in Maine is worse than you think

Liam SigaudBy Liam SigaudNovember 26, 2018Updated:November 26, 2018No Comments3 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Email LinkedIn Reddit
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email

It’s no secret that Maine’s public K-12 education system needs work. Bloated bureaucracies keep money from flowing to the classroom. Powerful teachers’ unions stymie efforts to make educators accountable for their performance. Maine’s once-exalted standing in national rankings has sharply eroded.

But a new paper by the Cato Institute shows just how poorly Maine’s public schools are performing. The paper reveals that popular state rankings — like those created by U.S. News & World Report and Education Week — use a flawed methodology that inflates Maine’s position relative to other states. For example, state rankings reported by news organizations frequently include more than just achievement scores. Often, the rankings are also based on variables like per-pupil funding levels, pre-K enrollment figures, and graduation rates, that have no direct connection to student learning.

Rankings reported by U.S. News & World Report and Education Week also make the mistake of aggregating achievement scores across all races and ethnicities without taking into account the unique heterogeneity of the student population of each state. Since whites generally outperform blacks and Hispanics on standardized achievement tests, simply averaging across all students — without adjusting for their racial and ethnic composition — can be highly misleading.

The Cato Institute corrects these errors, comparing state scores for each of three subjects (math, reading, and science), four major ethnic groups (whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asian/Pacific Islanders) and two grades (fourth and eighth) in each state. The researchers exclude factors (like pre-K enrollment and graduation rates) that don’t measure how much students have learned; instead, they rely solely on data from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), also known as “the nation’s report card.”

Once these adjustments are taken into account, Maine’s ranking drops from 6th according to the U.S. News & World Report to 49th, ahead of only West Virginia and Alabama (which are tied for 50th place). In other words, while widely used rankings place Maine’s K-12 education system among the best in the country, its true position is virtually at the bottom.

As the study’s authors explain:

“the aggregated NAEP scores overstate what [Maine’s] students have learned; Maine’s [adjusted] ranking is a full 25 positions below that. On the 10 achievement tests reported for Maine, its rankings on those tests are 46th, 45th, 48th, 37th, 41st, 40th, 34th, 40th, 41st, and 23rd. It is astounding that U.S. News could rank Maine as high as 6th, given the deficient performance of both its black and white students (the only two groups reported for Maine) relative to black and white students in other states. But since Maine’s student population is about 90 percent white, the aggregated scores bias the results upward.”

The study also looked at the educational “efficiency” of every state — a measure of the bang received for taxpayers’ education dollars. States whose students scored well on the NAEP despite low levels of public spending are considered highly efficient, while states that spent lavishly on K-12 education but achieved mediocre results on the NAEP are considered highly inefficient.

By that measure of educational efficiency, Maine ranks 50th in the country. That’s right — dead last. Put differently, every other state in the nation does a better a job with its investment in its public schools.

As Democrats get ready to take control of Maine’s government, they should acknowledge that their standard approach to education — pumping more taxpayer dollars into schools — has failed in Maine. It’s time to try something new.

There’s one good thing about being last; we’ve got nowhere to go but up.

Cato Cato Institute Commentary education Education Funding Featured Opinion per pupil spending
Previous ArticleNew ordinance diminishes the rights of property owners in South Portland
Next Article Maine: Born, raised and moved out
Liam Sigaud

Liam Sigaud is a former policy analyst at Maine Policy Institute. A native of Rockland, Maine, he holds a B.A. in Biology from the University of Maine at Augusta and has studied policy analysis and economics at the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. He can be reached by email at liam.sigaud@maine.edu.

Related Posts

No Discipline for Social Worker Who Gave 13yo Girl Breast Binder Without Telling Mother, Says Maine State Board

June 9, 2023

White House Bracing for Supreme Court to Kill Student Loan Forgiveness Program: WSJ

June 8, 2023

Maine Republicans Score Tentative Victory in Delaying Trans Trafficking Bill

June 7, 2023

Leave A Reply

Recent News

Maine State Police Blindsided as Speaker Talbot Ross Claims They Support “Racial Profiling” Bill Written by ACLU

June 9, 2023

No Discipline for Social Worker Who Gave 13yo Girl Breast Binder Without Telling Mother, Says Maine State Board

June 9, 2023

State House Kills “Right to Work” Legislation Prohibiting Employment Conditional on Payment of Union Dues

June 9, 2023

Trump Indicted on Federal Charges in Classified Documents Probe as Biden Faces Bribery Allegations

June 9, 2023

Gov’s Late-Term Abortion Bill Heads to House Amid Acrimony [Podcast]

June 9, 2023
Newsletter

News

  • News
  • Campaigns & Elections
  • Opinion & Commentary
  • Media Watch
  • Education
  • Media

Maine Wire

  • About the Maine Wire
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Submit Commentary
  • Complaints
  • Maine Policy Institute

Resources

  • Maine Legislature
  • Legislation Finder
  • Get the Newsletter
  • Maine Wire TV

Facebook Twitter Instagram Steam RSS
  • Post Office Box 7829, Portland, Maine 04112

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Sign In or Register

Welcome Back!

Login below or Register Now.

Lost password?

Register Now!

Already registered? Login.

A password will be e-mailed to you.